My 2016 Dream Team

I know it’s early, but if I could pick the 2016 nominees for president and vice president out of a crowded Republican field today, the choice would be easy: Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina.

My reasoning is simple: They are the only non-politicians who are worthy of serious consideration for the top job. The former has already formed an exploratory committee. The latter is exploring, exploring.

Both have succeeded at the highest levels in the real world: Carson in medicine, Fiorina in business. Both have management experience, Carson as director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, the youngest division head in the history of the institution, and Fiorina, who as CEO of Hewlett-Packard was the first female to head a Fortune 50 company.

Where does it say you have to have spent the biggest part of your life in politics to be qualified to be president? When you get right down to it, no one is really qualified for this job. You might say it is on-the-job training for the most important position in the country and arguably the world.

Perhaps that is why most recent presidents have failed miserably. I offer as Exhibit Number One:

An $18 trillion debt.

A sluggish economy

Stagnant wages

The lowest labor participation rate in 40 years

One of the highest corporate tax rates on the planet

A government that rewards failure and penalizes success

An entitlement system that is bringing us to our knees

Half of the population hooked on government handouts and crying for more

A school system that graduates students who can’t read their diplomas or do basic math

What do we need most in a president?

We need someone who will surround himself or herself with the best minds available — not political cronies — weigh all the evidence and make good decisions. We need someone who can think outside the box, who is not beholden to special interests groups. We need someone who is selfless, someone who will put the needs of the country before his or her own.

We need someone who has a real plan and is willing to do what it takes to solve the problems listed above, not create new ones just to win votes. And, above all, we need someone who is honest, a man or woman with no guile.

Ben Carson is such a man. He came from humble beginnings and overcame many obstacles to become a medical pioneer and gifted surgeon with many honors including the Presidental Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honor, and the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the NAACP.

Dr. Carson’s experience is not limited to medicine. He has sat on the board of directors of corporations like the Kellogg Company and Costco.

He is a man with a thirst for knowledge. He is the author of six books, the last two, American the Beautiful and One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future, with his wife, Candy. Together they created the Carson Scholarship Fund, which is active in all 50 states and rewards young people of all backgrounds for exceptional academic and humanitarian achievements. To date, this fund has awarded over $6.2 million to scholars.

In a recent Gallup Poll, Carson is the only candidate who has a higher net favorability rating than Hillary Clinton, although the good doctor is not as well-known. However, Ms. Clinton’s favorability has been in free-fall and part of the poll was conducted before the email scandal broke.

Fiorina is even less well known, barely a blimp on the radar screen at the moment, but expect her blip to rise if she makes it into the debates. In 2010, her first foray into politics was in impressive. While battling cancer, she ran against entrenched incumbent Barbara Boxer in the California Senate race and only lost by 10 points despite her public stands against abortion and efforts to cut greenhouse gases in this deep blue state.

My one beef with Fiorina is her strong support for the H-1B visa which allows businesses to import foreign workers almost at will with no accountability. However, she can punch holes in the Democrat’s phony “war on women” strategy like no one else can.

The one drawback for Carson is no military experience. However, he does know what it means to hold life in his hands.

Yes, the fact that one is black and the other is a woman is an obvious plus. However, I would feel the same about these two if gender and race were not a part of this equation. They are my 2016 dream team.

7 thoughts on “My 2016 Dream Team”

Good choices but I prefer Ted Cruz at this point. I’m suspect of Rubio, Rand Paul, and many others. With my business training and background I want to hear what The Donald has to say (Trump). He may not be liked or be a likable person but when you hire someone to do a difficult job or nasty job, like a gunslinger to clear out the riff-raff (ISIS et al), or a garbage man to take out the garbage (liberals and RINOs), you don’t have to like the person. All you need is ability and trustworthiness to do the job. I’m sure Donald Trump would do as he has recently said (paraphrasing) “I’m the only who can turn this country around.” If people will listen, they may actually learn to like him, if not because of his brash personality, at least from his ability to get the job done, on time and under budget! As a V-P, Senator Mike Lee would be an excellent team member.

While Carson and/or Fiorina would be infinitely preferable to the Mad Mullah who rules us today, I am afraid neither would save us from ruin. It is too late for compromise or halfway measures.
Dr. Carson does not really support the Second Amendment. Ms. Fiorina, as befits the CEO of a major corporation, cares little for the dwindling American middle class, and supports bringing in foreign workers to take jobs from the few Americans who still have jobs.
I no longer trust any politician, but perhaps Ted Cruz (maybe ineligible, but, hey, we already have an illegal alien in the White House) would make a good President, with either Dr. Carson or Ms. Fiorina as Vice President and the other in some cabinet post.
But the RINOs who rule the “Republican” half of our single Republicrap Party will never allow a patriot to be nominated. We will get to “choose” between a Bush and a Clinton, Gore, or Warren. That is, if we even have an “election” and the prancing fairy in the Evil Office actually leaves.

I personally do not see anyone yet that would get my vote. I may very well be opting out of this election.

I will not vote as a tactic. If I do not believe in the person I will not vote. It’s quite possible, with today’s politicians and the hoops they have to jump through to get on a ballot, I may not be voting for a Prez candidate again…ever.

While I concur with you on Carson, he has lost a bit of steam of late, especially since Ted Cruz came on board doing what is necessary to get the pot stirred – he’s sounding a lot like a modern day Reagan, the Constitutional-conservative most of us freedom & liberty types want.

As for Carly Fiorina, what I seem to remember of her is her utter failure at the helm of Hewlett-Packard. Remembering that “experience only matters when good things come of it” (Frederick the Great), her candidacy is hardly invigorating to the Republican Party. Oh surely, it’s nice that she’s a woman and all, but her qualifications are really not that flattering. I’m interested in the best person for the job, not the best demographics. I’m with Cruz at the moment, but find both Walker and Jindal alluring and of course Carson still holds huge appeal to me save for his stand on gay civil marriage. He’s for it, I’m against it. The Rand Paul thing will be interesting, but I don’t see staying power and too much conflict with Cruz as they are essentially the same but Paul has some difficult legacy baggage.

I like Ted Cruz and would support him. However, I still think it would be helpful to have people who have had real jobs outside of the government running the country, people who have executive experience and have proven they have the ability to gather the facts and make good decisions. That said, Carson is number 3 in the latest Fox poll behind Walker and Bush and ahead of Cruz, even though Carson hasn’t announced yet.

Also, I would urge you to check out Fiorina’s record. Read the good and the bad on a site like Wikipedia and then decide if she was a failure. Sure, she was eventually fired at Hewlett-Packard, but most CEO’s of Fortune 100 companies are eventually fired and often the reasons involve internal politics on the board, nothing new.

I would be the last to want her on the ticket just because she is a woman. Bad idea.

I owe you an apology…or so it may seem. I do very much appreciate your response, as I value your opinion. What I had previously said about my impressions were gathered without much inside insight, but merely reflections from comments while living in Silicon Valley for nearly 20 years. After writing to you, I decided to check in with a friend who is an extremely astute investor. He essentially said what you said…it depends. Sure the purchase of Compaq may not have gone well, but there were good things as well such as the spin-off of Agilent. At any rate, your comment that “most CEO’s of Fortune 100 companies are eventually fired…” is pretty much spot-on (except here in Peoria, at CAT, they usually just retire and fade away). I appreciate as well your last comment – it fits perfectly with Thomas Sowell’s comments on today’s silly emphasis on demographics rather than the best person for the job. After finding this quote of hers in an article this morning, I see the value of Fiorina in the race: “It’s not about your gender, it’s about what you believe, what your accomplishments are, what your track record is, what your leadership is.” Hillary has accomplished nothing; Fiorina has value.

If she is in the race, she will say the things most of the men will be afraid to say. Also, people will, quite naturally, compare their accomplishments. Sure Fiorina had some failures, everyone who accomplishes anything has some, but Hillary??? Also, young people are simply being told to be a part of electing the first woman president. That’s all they known. They will not even look at her record or lack thereof. Check out my column “A Seven-year-old Looks at the Office of President.”